The Jihadi Next Door: How ISIS Is Forcing, Defrauding, and Coercing Your Neighbor into Terrorism

By Kimberly Mehlman-Orozco and Chris Sampson

The recruitment of ISIS terrorists may have begun as an extremist crusade in Iraq, but it has quickly become a global phenomenon that is taking hold of people from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and belief systems. The iconic image of a terrorist as an old, angry, middle-eastern man is long gone. It has since been replaced by young men and women of all races and religious upbringings, in tactical gear and ski masks, carrying heavy artillery. From the outside looking into the Islamic State, most people see these men and women as nothing more than evil terrorists with a psychotic penchant for violence. Internally, they perceive themselves as freedom fighters or mujahedeen, who violate the laws of men to protect their community according to the will of Allah.

Ultimately, neither of these perceptions are based in reality.

While some experts claim that terrorist recruitment is completely random, criminologist Kimberly Mehlman-Orozco has identified clear patterns which can be used to explain how regular people are being conscripted into terrorism. Using interviews with convicted terrorists, in-depth research and analysis of extremist propaganda, and case-specific details, Dr. Mehlman-Orozco provides nuanced theories into the methods of terrorist recruitment—methods which can be used to identify persons at high risk of being targeted.

The Jihadi Next Door provides unprecedented information that can be used to actually combat terrorism. By laying bare the tactics used by ISIS to deceive and exploit new recruits and exposing the veneer these extremists operate under, Dr. Mehlman-Orozco hopes to empower readers with the knowledge needed to prevent future recruitment and thereby preventing acts of terrorism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Release date: Jan 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781510732872

Kimberly Mehlman-Orozco

Dr. Kimberly Mehlman-Orozco holds a PhD in Criminology, Law and Society from George Mason University. Her research and writing has been featured in media outlets around the world. The author resides in Montclair, Virginia.

Book preview

Cover Page of The Jihadi Next DoorHalf Title of The Jihadi Next DoorTitle Page of The Jihadi Next Door

Copyright © 2019 by Kimberly Mehlman-Orozco

Foreword © 2019 by Chris Sampson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

Skyhorse Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [e-mail].

Skyhorse® and Skyhorse Publishing® are registered trademarks of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

Visit our website at www.skyhorsepublishing.com.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Brian Peterson

Cover photo credit: iStockphoto

ISBN: 978-1-51073-286-5

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-51073-287-2

Printed in the United States of America

For all the parents who have lost a child to terrorism.

CONTENTS

Foreword

Author’s Note

Introduction

PART I

1     Drawing Parallels

2     Archetype

3     Entrapped

PART II

4     Sister of Terror

5     Jihad Jane

6     White Widow

7     Black Widow

8     Terror Teens

9     Grandma Terror

PART III

10   Brother of Terror

11   Tactics of a Desert Lion

12   Terrorist for Hire

13   Ginger Jihadi

14   Orphans of ISIS

15   Cubs of the Caliphate

PART IV

16   Counterterrorism

17   Rumiyah

18   Through the Eyes of a Terrorist

19   Education Kills Terrorism

Appendix A. Needs Assessment Tool to Identify Youth at High Risk of Being Radicalized

Appendix B. A Letter from Donald Morgan

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

Photos

FOREWORD

Why would anyone join ISIS—the terrorist offspring of al-Qaeda?

While much has been written on the roots of the organization and the violent tactics used by the group, more understanding is needed on what brought these terrorists to the world stage. People are not recruited to commit murder simply as a result of watching a propaganda video or from a belief in a particular religion. It is a process known as radicalization.

By selectively targeting vulnerable individuals, terrorists use a series of techniques to lower the recruits’ inhibitions, increase a strong sense of grievance, and build a feeling of community. To understand this process, we look at cases and testimony from those who have taken this path to destruction and learn from the choices they made. In this book, Dr. Kimberly Mehlman-Orozco applies her experience in criminology to lay out an understanding of what it takes to draw people from the fabric of society into a world of extremism and, ultimately, terrorism.

Understanding these lures assists counterextremist efforts in exposing the lies used by recruiters. Targeted conscripts are pulled in by promises of being made heroes—of being useful and relevant. Recruits come from various backgrounds and many seem surprising at first glance.

For example, Colleen LaRose of Detroit became a high-profile recruit to ISIS, yet her background seemed at odds with what many people conceived as the type of person who would join the terrorist group. However, as the book will show, she had all the conditions necessary to be at risk of radicalization. All her recruiter needed to do was give her a role that she had failed to achieve in her life thus far. She had an opportunity to become someone else—someone important, valued, and cherished. With the terrorists who recruited her, LaRose felt her abusive upbringing, repeated mistreatment, failed relationships, and drug-addicted life could be things of the past. She reinvented herself as Fatima LaRose—an aspiring suicide bomber— before becoming internationally notorious as Jihad Jane.

This pattern isn’t isolated in one country, either. The Jihadi Next Door highlights stories of men and women, young and old, from around the world, who joined ISIS based on promises of change, community, and heroic adventure. Despite many differences on the surface, most recruits shared common characteristics in their lack of social acceptance, engagement, and successes.

The range of their personal attributes reflected a clear pattern of ISIS targeting. They wanted to bring in people from the Muslim world as part of their effort to hijack the religion. They sought to recruit people from outside the Muslim world who didn’t understand the Arabic language, the deep roots of the Islamic culture, or the religion so they could carry out their death cult view of Islam. They sought out people from various sectors of society to fill organizational needs. For grunt fighters, ISIS worked to lure young men who would fight to the death for their so-called caliphate. For breeding another generation, they sought women who desired husbands and a sense of fulfillment. To lure these groups in, they targeted recruits who would focus on promises of brides and husbands. They sought bright, computer-savvy people like Junaid Hussain and Siful Sujan from the UK to hack and engage in social engineering. They pursued people in marginalized groups of societies and fed their need to belong.

As the caliphate crumbled underneath them in recent years, ISIS fanned out into other fragmented countries that were at the outer perimeter of their reach. After they lost territory in Syria and Iraq they retreated to failed countries like Yemen, Libya, and Afghanistan. ISIS efforts in Boko Haram, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Philippines remained ongoing crises even after the losses in Syria and Iraq. It must be stated that though ISIS failed to hold its grip on Syria and Iraq in the second half of 2018, they still have an estimated thirty thousand fighters in the organization at the time of this publication.

Terrorists thrive on resentment and ignorance. The examples in this book are a guide for those who wish to understand the inception of extremism through the stages of radicalization to the acts of terror, which can be equally applied to other groups. Gangs, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and other extreme political organizations follow many of the same patterns as we’ve seen used by ISIS. The Jihadi Next Door does well at covering specific examples of recruitment and can serve future scholars as a window into the radicalization process, which needn’t be limited to ISIS.

—Chris Sampson

Terrorism Analyst

Coauthor of Hacking ISIS: How to Destroy the Cyber Jihad

AUTHOR’S NOTE

You will soon realize that the title of this book is paradoxical, which was my intention. I will argue that the term jihadi should not be used interchangeably with the nouns terrorist and extremist.

Jihad is a religious word, which is referenced in the Qur’an. It literally means a struggle or effort—to live out the Muslim faith as well as possible, to build a good Muslim society, and to defend Islam, with force if necessary, but with rules of engagement.¹

Terrorists do not engage in religiously sanctioned or legal warfare with proper rules of engagement; they are criminals who commit horrific acts of violence with cowardice and deceit. Their leadership is truly motivated by money and power, not religion. Therefore, despite their self-proclamations, I try not to describe them as jihadists or as engaging in jihad. Instead, I have attempted to more accurately refer to them as terrorists or irjafiyyun (singular irjafi), extremists, and criminals.²

Likewise, a mujahid is someone who engages in jihad, which terrorists don’t do; and a martyr is someone who is killed because of their religious beliefs. Terrorists are suicide bombers, not martyrs.

Although this may seem like I am quibbling over semantic distinction for the sake of political correctness, I will argue that this confounding use of language reflects a larger issue that undermines the efficacy of counterterrorism interventions.

Words matter, especially because:

A lie told often enough becomes truth.

—Vladimir Lenin

INTRODUCTION

Close your eyes and imagine a criminal.

Now visualize a law-abiding citizen.

Whom did you see?

Over the last ten years, I’ve taught undergraduate criminology classes at two top-ranked universities. Each semester, I have my students do this exercise and collect their anonymous responses. Despite teaching diverse groups of educated young people, the reactions to this assignment are usually, stereotypically patterned. The criminal is most frequently described as being a young black male.¹ Even if my students are politically correct enough to refrain from remarking on the particular race of the person they imagined, the criminal is still described in dark places, with dark features (e.g., eyes or hair), and dark clothing.

On the other hand, the law-abiding citizen is most frequently described as being an old white woman. Again, even if the student omits the race of the law abiding citizen, this person is still described in light places, with light features (e.g., white teeth), and light clothing, such as a sundress.

These stereotypes exist, whether we admit to them or not. Naturally, people will develop heuristics based on the information they are exposed to. The reason why young black men are stereotyped as criminals is that the media disproportionately portrays them as such.² Moreover, our criminal justice system has perpetually suffered from disproportionate minority contact and sentencing. This means that although the likelihood of engaging in crime is similar across different races, young people of color are more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, and incarcerated based solely on their skin hue.³

Similar patterns exist when discussing terrorism and who is profiled as a terrorist.

When I ask my students to envision a terrorist, many of them describe a Muslim-looking man with a turban and long beard. Some even believed that Allahu Akbar is something that terrorists say, despite the fact that it literally translates to God is greater or God is the greatest. ⁴

In response, I would try to challenge their preconceived notions. Is it even possible to see someone’s criminality? Why would saying, God is great, in Arabic be considered a sign of terrorism, but not when said in English?

I didn’t know that’s what Allahu Akbar means, I just heard that’s what terrorists shout before killing people, one student explained.

The information that we are exposed to shapes our assumptions on criminality in a way that is often divergent from reality. The same holds true for persons recruited into terrorism. To us, we are the freedom fighters, and they are the terrorists killing civilians. To them, we are the crusaders who invaded their country, and they are the freedom fighters.

Given the instability in certain regions in Iraq and Syria, ISIS leadership and recruiters want people to believe that they are protecting their community and killing people in accordance with Islam, under the will of Allah, but that’s a lie.

Violence in the name of God results from the perversion of religion to exploit marginalized people for money and power. Religion is just another veneer under which criminal enterprises can operate.

ISIS leadership is comprised of nothing more than sacrilegious opportunists who are using Islam for their own personal gain and selfish motives—what many would consider a sin. The criminals who run ISIS and other terrorist organizations manipulate their interpretation of the religion in order to use it to force, defraud, and coerce exploitable people into fighting and dying for them.

Many of you may not believe this reality now, but by the end of this book, my hope is that you will understand why exposing this falsehood is key to counterterrorism.

PART I

1

Drawing Parallels

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Dr. Kimberly Mehlman-Orozco. I am a mother of four children—two girls, two boys—and a social scientist, with an expertise in human trafficking.

I’ve spent nearly a decade researching human trafficking by serving on task forces; attending related conferences and summits; and collecting qualitative data from convicted human traffickers, human trafficking survivors, commercial sex consumers, and consenting sex workers. I’ve written extensively on the topic of trafficking in persons—one book; two magazine features; four peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles; and over two dozen opinion editorials, all before the age of thirty-five. At the time of this writing, I have served as a human trafficking expert witness on approximately one dozen criminal and civil court cases, across multiple states, and I’ve been interviewed over two dozen times by reporters writing pieces on human trafficking.

Given my area of expertise, you may be wondering why am I writing a book about a seemingly unrelated topic—terrorism. The explanation begins more than six years before this publication.

After graduating in the summer of 2012 with my PhD in criminology, law, and society from George Mason University, I took a position as an instructor in the criminology department of a top-ranked university. I was on a nine-month teaching contract and instructed four classes per semester, with over 500 students. My introductory criminology courses were in large lecture halls that could fit 250 students at one time.

Due to the size of those classes, I normally didn’t know any of the students by name. However, there was an interesting phenomenon that I noticed—undergrads were territorial. No matter the size of the class or lack of seat assignments, they typically sat in the same location, every class, and would become perturbed if someone took their seat.

Given the self-selected and consistent seating structure, I was able to familiarize myself with some faces, especially of those students who regularly attended class. I’ll call one of them Amal.¹

Amal was in the very first class² I taught after earning my PhD. She didn’t sit in the front row or actively participate in class discussion, but she never missed a lecture and always sat in the same location—middle row, in the seat closest to the isle on my right. I also noticed her because of her clothing, as she was one of the few female criminology students at the time who wore a hijab.

I had become familiar with the significance of the hijab nearly ten years earlier in a psychology class during my undergraduate coursework. It was in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and one of my classmates wanted to do a presentation on the stigma that she felt had become associated with Muslim veils. This student wore a hijab, which is a scarf that covered her head and neck, along with a niqab, which concealed her entire face apart from her eyes, and a jilbab—a loose fitting garment, which covered her entire body, aside from her hands. During her presentation, she removed the niqab and jilbab, which shocked everyone in the class, including our professor.

Underneath her jilbab, she dressed in jeans and a shirt, like any other student in class. After removing the niqab, she revealed a naturally beautiful, makeup-less face. The student explained that she didn’t wear the niqab, jilbab, or hijab during high school but had made the choice to start wearing these veils once she started college. She believed that the Qur’an called for modesty, and wearing the hijab, niqab, jilbab, or other veils fulfilled this commandment. She told us that she wore these garments in order to avoid the gaze of men, which she wanted to reserve only for her future husband and in the comfort of her own home.

Before that moment, I had no idea why some Muslim women chose to wear veils, and I hadn’t cared enough to find out. I suppose I had just assumed it was some relic of paternalistic restrictions against females. After listening intently to my classmate’s presentation, however, I came to realize that for many women, the choice was left to their discretion and served as a symbol of their commitment toward their current or future partner, as well as to their God.

I remember leaving that class with a positive connotation of the hijab. My takeaway was that Muslim women who chose to wear a veil were no different from you or me; they just decided to express their modesty on their own terms, in accordance with their interpretation of religion.

As such, although I noticed Amal because of her hijab, I thought nothing of it. She was just another undergrad in my class.

About midway through the semester, Amal approached me after my lecture and asked if she could interview me for her communications course. Her assignment was to interview a professor to gain insight into career paths associated with her major—criminology. I told her that I would be happy to help her out with the assignment and to visit me during office hours.

A few weeks later, Amal knocked at my office door and asked if I had time that day for the interview. I welcomed her into my office and gave her a seat, before shutting the door for privacy. She pulled out a notebook with her interview questions and a tape recorder. After asking my permission to record the interview, she began.

I don’t remember all of the questions Amal asked, but I believe there were about ten. They included inquiries about my pathway into the criminal justice field, how I became interested in the subject, where I went to school, and what positions I had before teaching at her university.

After about thirty minutes, she opened up to me about her aspiration: I want to become an FBI agent.

In every class I’ve ever taught, I try to look at my students as if they were my own children, so that I can give them genuine advice on how to bring their professional dreams into reality. I responded to Amal the same, by giving her my assessment of what makes a competitive applicant for the FBI, before urging her to seek out one of the many internship opportunities that are available for college students. However, I could tell there was something left unsaid in our conversation, as she didn’t respond to the advice as most students did.

Ummmm, she hesitated, fidgeting in her seat.

Her shyness was palpable, so I encouraged her: You can ask me anything, I won’t judge.

Okay, she paused. Can … can someone still join the FBI if their family member committed a crime?

I was taken a bit off guard by her question, as I couldn’t imagine how it pertained to her. I believe so. The most important thing is that you’re honest when they perform the background checks. As long as you’re honest, there shouldn’t be a problem.

"Are you sure? What if … if it was a serious crime?"

As long as you weren’t involved and are honest on your background and polygraph, I couldn’t imagine it would affect you.

"What if it’s a close family member, like a sibling, does that matter?"

No, I don’t think so, just as long as you weren’t involved and you are upfront with it. I don’t think you’ll have a problem. Did your family member commit a crime?

Yes, my brother.

I felt as though she wanted to tell me more but for some reason was refraining.

If you don’t mind me asking, what type of crime?

A pregnant pause filled the room.

I broke the silence, confused about the impetus for her questions but wanting to give her the opportunity to speak with me without fear of judgment. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but I honestly won’t judge, and I think it would help me provide you with a better answer. What type of crime was it?

She let out a soft sigh, before whispering the word terrorism.

After she said it, Amal looked up from her hands, waiting, and watching for my reaction.

I was utterly shocked but tried my hardest not let my facial expression show. I didn’t know exactly how to respond but endeavored to academically assess the situation to provide the best advice for this student who sought my counsel. Well, that might be a little different, depending on how serious it was. Can you tell me what happened?

In the interest in preserving Amal’s anonymity, I won’t go into details about her brother’s case, but essentially he was convicted of providing material support to terrorists—an increasingly common charge in the United States. According to U.S. Federal Criminal Code, material support includes the provision of any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instruments or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safe houses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel, or transportation.³

Terrorist recruiters targeted Amal’s brother online, recognizing his computer programming skills, and asked him to set up a website to facilitate money transfers for the jihad. Federal agents monitored the exchange and arrested her brother after he complied with the terrorists’ request.

Amal began to tear as she recalled them searching her family’s home on the day of his arrest and on additional occasions thereafter. Streams were running down her face by the time she told me, One of the agents, I asked him, and he said I could never be an FBI agent because of what my brother did. And this is all I’ve wanted to do with my life since I was a little girl. My dreams are crushed because of his mistake.

I tried to console her the best that I could and give her some advice on how to still have a meaningful career, but I was at a loss. Her brother was facing fifteen years in federal prison.

I continued to meet with Amal during my office hours throughout the course of the semester and got to know her and the story of her family more closely. Her parents worked hard to make ends meet and provide the best educational opportunities for Amal and her siblings. They had absolutely no extremist leanings, and were just pursuing the American Dream like everyone else. Their hard work had seemingly paid off when Amal’s older brother received a full scholarship to a prestigious university, but it was all washed away with his conviction. After he served five years in federal prison, he was deported back to their home country, and his family chose to self-deport with him to stay united.

After getting to know Amal, I do not believe her brother was destined to become a terrorist sympathizer; he was recruited. Like many high-risk terrorist recruits, her brother was rather isolated, impressionable, and had very few friends. In fact, he was later diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, which is an Autism Spectrum Disorder that, among other things, causes challenges for normal social interactions. He found solace online, chatting with strangers for more than 40 hours per week. Terrorists lured him by providing a sense of belonging that he struggled to find in normal day-to-day relationships. He fed off of their positive reinforcement and failed to realize that they were exploiting him.

There was something incredibly familiar about the manner in which Amal’s brother was recruited into terrorism. To me, his story at least was somewhat reminiscent of how human traffickers recruit and control victims.

The way that I conceptualize human trafficking recruitment, in a nutshell, is as follows:

First, the human trafficker identifies a target and determines which of his or her needs are not being met: physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, or self-actualization.⁴

Next, the human trafficker typically makes the false promise to fulfill the needs of the target or temporarily meet the needs of the target in

Reviews for The Jihadi Next Door

[jennynau10 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found this subject so interesting. The fact that Americans with no connection to any terrorist group could be recruited pretty easily is astonishing to me and believable all at once. Criminologist/Author Kimberly Mehlman-Orozco explains the precise patterns that make average Americans vulnerable to recruitment. Those patterns are not what you'd think they are.
In the right hands, this theory may allow anyone to see the signs earlier than before, and this may prevent future terrorism around the world.